I’ve been engaged for almost a year (story below!) and I’m so excited to start blogging for TheKnot.com! But here’s the funny thing: I work at TheKnot.com.

Yes that’s right; I work at TheKnot.com as a Public Relations Manager. It’s truly a dream job and I love every single second of it. But how has it affected my planning? Has my insider information been a lifesaver or a burden? Thus far, it’s been a bit of both and I’ll be sharing some stories. Some truly wonderful things have happened, like finding my perfect dress in our fashion closet (more on that down the road)! However, consuming so much wedding porn day in and day out has definitely taken its toll — I may work at The Knot, but I don’t have the unlimited budget to do every single pretty thing I see here (wouldn’t that be fab?!).

So to begin today’s post, I’ll start at the beginning. This is the story of the night we got engaged…

I’ll start by telling you that my fiancé Oren is just perfect. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a man and so so so much more. I know every girl in love and about to get married says stuff like this and it’s cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less true. What makes Oren so perfect in this instance is just how much he considered what would make me happy when he proposed (other than that he was proposing, of course).

The date: September 24, 2011. The place: Oren’s house.

My parents and sister were in town visiting and we were going to Oren’s house so our families could meet each other for the first time. Serious business. As we all sat down to eat, Oren’s mom realized she forgot something and asked Oren to go grab it. He handed me a serving spoon, put on oven mitts and brought a casserole dish to the trivet next to me on the table.

After that, he just kind of looked at me and I thought that he couldn’t grip the knob with the oven mitts. After quickly touching the top, I realized the pot wasn’t hot. Cue my sister’s favorite way to make fun of me: I even said out loud “It’s not even hot!” At this point, Oren just decided to lift the lid himself (I found out later, I was supposed to have lifted it).

Inside was a ring box! It took me quite a while to process exactly what was going on. But my mom says once I realized I turned bright red like a tomato (I do that often), and all I could say was “Seriously?” until finally Oren’s mom said “Yes, seriously!”

Back to my original thought about how perfect Oren is. He really considered that I would want to celebrate with my parents and sister immediately, so he chose a night that would be special for both of our families. To top it off, the casserole dish has a special meaning – it belonged to his grandmother and now sits proudly on our bookshelf. So yea, he’s a keeper.

Over the next few months, I’ll share some of my favorite wedding details and probably even more of them after the wedding – don’t want to ruin the surprise! For now, I’ll also share the link to our wedding website: www.orenandsteph.com. Also, our save the date video was such fun for us to film and shoot this past winter, you can view it below and on our website too! Both were created by the fabulous Oren. Not only can he plan a fantastic proposal – he can also create brilliant websites and videos!

Two weeks and five days ago my girlfriend Evin and I got engaged.

We both knew this would happen even though getting engaged had become of late, the elephant-in-the-relationship — infrequently discussed, occasionally joked about.  By the time I was fairly sure she was just insane enough to accept, I went out and did the prudent thing. I had Evin’s best friend take her to a jewelry store under the guise of looking for earrings, trick her into heading to the back of the store to look at engagement rings, find out exactly what she wanted, then report back to me.

The following week I went to 47^th St (NYC’s diamond district) to buy a ring. When I found what I wanted, it sat buried in a bag  in the back of our closet while I waited for the exact right moment.

Late in the afternoon the following Saturday, I sat Evin down at our kitchen table — the one we built from scraps left on the curb of our neighbor (the actress) Keri Russell’s house.

Me: “So, if we went engagement ring shopping, what would you like?”

Her: “Should we even be having this discussion?  Shouldn’t you just go out and buy one?”

Me: “Do you know what you want?

Her:  “Yes, am I supposed to just tell you?”

Me: “Should we go to Zales?” (a joke) “What are you thinking, ¼ carat,  1/2 a carat?  Color V, clarity QW9?” (all jokes)

This went on for 10 or 25 minutes until I pulled the ring out and said, “should it look like this?”

I expected tears or shock or a combination of the two.  Instead, she casually waved me off, stood up from “The Keri Russell Table” and walked out of the room saying dismissively, “that’s from a gumball machine!”  I tried to convince her but she wasn’t having any of it.  “Let me see that,” she said looking at it closely, “it’s not even a good gumball machine fake diamond ring.”  So I went to the bedroom and brought out the laminated certificate.  Only then did it register on her face that I was serious and the ring was real.  “This is where you say ‘yes,’” I instructed.  And she did.

A flurry of text messages and phone calls to family and friends followed before a walk two blocks away to celebrate at our favorite neighborhood restaurant.  Looking over our menus we made a pact — “let’s enjoy being engaged for one week and NOT talk wedding plans.”  We hardly made it to dessert.

Over the next week we sat at our computers looking at web sites that supposedly helped couples plan their wedding. “How To Buy That Dress,”  “Picking The Right Bouquet,” “Who Will Be Your Maid of Honor.”  Hey!  What about me? And so I thought:  maybe I should blog about the wedding experience from the male POV.  And that’s that.

So until Evin and I get married early next summer, I will be blogging on a weekly basis how this undertaking is going for me. A Groom With A View will be an honest account of the most illogical of processes — getting married.